Innovative Developer Brings In Big Private Equity Backers

Edge, the Netherlands-based developer known for pioneering smart building technology and sustainable developments, has sold a “significant minority stake” to a fund managed by Australian firm Macquarie Asset Management. 

A Macquarie opportunistic real estate fund — a fund that takes higher risk to get higher returns — has bought the stake and will own the business alongside Edge founder Coen van Oostrom, the two companies said in a joint statement.

Macquarie taking a stake will allow Edge to scale up its business, the statement said. 

The corporate acquisition by Macquarie comes just a few weeks after Goldman Sachs Asset Management took a 75% stake in the £500M, 260K SF office building Edge is building in London Bridge, the first scheme it has developed in the UK. 

In the U.S., Edge has a $1.2B development joint venture with Nuveen.

Edge is known for developing its own smart building technology platform and for its strong focus on sustainability. 

For example, its London Bridge project has a targeted regulated energy consumption of less than 23 kilowatt hours per square meter. This will allow the energy intensity of the building to align with both the RIBA 2030 Climate Challenge operational intensity targets for new-build offices and the London Energy Transformation Initiatives, which it said are “Paris-proof” as they align with a net-zero carbon trajectory.

The tower will be partly constructed in cross-laminated timber, which offers a high level of flexibility for interconnected floors and aligns with the ambition to achieve an exceptionally low whole-life embodied carbon intensity of 650 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent per square meter. That falls well below the RIBA 2030 Climate Challenge embodied carbon intensity target.

This focus was the big draw for Macquarie in buying a stake in the company. 

“Globally we have seen COVID-19 accelerate changing trends in the office sector, with growing demand for sustainable office spaces that are suitable for new economy tenants and their workforces,” Macquarie Asset Management Head of Opportunistic Real Estate Jelte Bakker said. “We have been actively pursuing investments in this sector.”